outlaw’s dagger.
There were three of them, and they knew what they were about. One grabbed for the reins of Ranulf’s horse; the other two closed in on Ranulf. He yelled for Loth, then grappled with the man brandishing the cudgel. A deadly sort of dance ensued, in which he struggled with one assailant while trying at the same time to keep the man’s body between him and the knife-wielder.
For a few frenzied moments, he actually managed it, immobilizing the one man in a bear hug, fending off the other’s thrusting dagger. The third man was still trying to stop the frightened stallion from bolting, but he’d soon join the fray, too. Desperation had lent Ranulf strength, but there was blood on both men, his blood, and he was being forced away from the pond, exposing his back to the knife. The second bandit saw his chance and moved in for the kill.
The light was fading and Ranulf did not see what happened next. The man seemed to trip, for suddenly he was not there anymore. Ranulf heard a scream, snarling, and then the sounds of a wild struggle, as the outlaw and Loth thrashed about in the shadows. But Ranulf’s reprieve was brief. He was weakening fast, and when his boot slipped in the mud, he went over backward into the pond.
His assailant landed on top of him. He’d lost his cudgel in the fall, but wasted no time groping for it in the shallows. Instead, he grabbed Ranulf’s hair and shoved his head under the water. Ranulf fought frantically to get free, but each time he gulped a lungful of air, he was pushed under again. The water was rapidly turning red, and then black, and he was spiraling down into that darkness, unable to break his fall.
He was almost unconscious when the killer’s grip slackened, but his body fought to survive even as his brain clouded, and he battled his way back to the surface, back to life. Gasping for breath, he had no strength to resist when he was seized again. As easy to drown as a newborn kitten, he choked and sputtered and sucked in as much air as he could in the moments he had left. But he was not being pushed down into the pond’s depths. Another bandit had waded into the water, was dragging him toward the shore. It made no sense to him. In his mind’s eye, he saw himself rolling clear, scrambling to his feet, getting away. Instead, he vomited weakly into the wet grass, bracing for the bite of steel as the outlaw’s blade found his throat.
“Easy, man, easy.” The voice was friendly, the words French. He’d heard his attackers as they sought to subdue him, their speech guttural and oath-laden and unmistakably English. Making an enormous effort, Ranulf turned over onto his back.
The bandits were gone. In the deepening dusk, he could make out the blurred outlines of a peddler’s cart, blocking the road. A muscular youth stood several feet away, a hefty club in one hand, a chain in the other; at the end of the chain was one of the most fearsome dogs Ranulf had ever seen, as broad-chested as a mastiff, as black as the darkening sky. A second stranger was kneeling by Ranulf’s side. As their eyes met, he repeated:
“Easy now. You’ve swallowed half the pond and you’re bleeding badly. But the danger is past. Those craven knaves took off like rabbits. I’d like to think the mere sight of my brother and me was enough to strike fear into their evil souls, but I suspect it was Cain there who put them to flight!” He chuckled and then gave an exclamation of dismay. “What are you doing? Just lie still, get your breath back.”
Ranulf ignored him. “My dog…where is my dog?”
The youth in the shadows moved forward as Ranulf struggled to sit up. “Over there,” he said, pointing off toward his right. “There is naught you can do for him, though. He’s dead.”
“No,” Ranulf exclaimed, “no!” Unable to rise, he crawled over to his dog. Loth lay on his side, tongue protruding, the fur on his chest matted and dark with blood. Ranulf’s rescuers had followed, were urging him away from the body. Ranulf never heard them. Cradling Loth’s head in his lap, he buried his face in the dog’s ruffled fur and wept.
Ranulf awoke to pain and a wrenching sense of loss. He remembered at once: the ambush by the pond, his panic as his lungs filled with water, bursting for air. Loth’s death. But that was his last memory, holding the dyrehund’s limp, lifeless body in his arms. After that, nothing.
Opening his eyes, he squinted up into midday sunlight. He was outdoors, wrapped in blankets before a smoking fire, wrapped, too, in makeshift bandages. The pain had begun to recede, but never had he felt so weak. He willed himself to move again, propping up on his elbow so he could look around. His movement attracted immediate attention: a low growl, disturbingly close at hand, a quick “Down, Cain!” and then, “Josce, he’s awake!”
Last night’s Good Samaritan was bending over him. He looked to be about Ranulf’s own age, in his late twenties, with a pleasant, bluff face, thick sand-colored hair, and uncommonly green eyes. “Well, you’re back with us at last. How are you feeling? Never mind, foolish question. You look puzzled. Do you not remember what happened?”
“Only some of it. Did I…pass out?”
His benefactor nodded. “You were set upon burying your dog, even if you bled to death doing it. We tried to talk some sense into you, for you were hardly in any condition to be digging graves and there was always the chance those swine might come back. But I’ll say this for you; once you get an idea into your head, you plough that furrow, no matter what. Fortunately you then swooned dead away-bad choice of words-ere we had to bury you with the poor beast. So we bundled you into the cart, stopped your bleeding as best we could, and set up camp once we’d gone far enough to feel safe from pursuit.”
Raising his voice, he beckoned to his brother. “Josce, fetch the man some of our dinner. You need to eat, even if you have to force it down. Ah, I almost forgot-we found your horse. And…and I did bury the dog for you. You set such store by him…” He paused, sounding the way men often did when caught out in a kindness-somewhat embarrassed. “I thought you might want this,” he said, holding up Loth’s leather collar.
Ranulf took it, squeezing back tears. When he looked up again, the youth called Josce was offering a wineskin. Ranulf swallowed and discovered it held a pungent, tart cider. Josce watched him drink, then said, “From what we saw, your dog chewed up that wretch something fierce ere he got stabbed. That one’ll be limping off to Hell, and feeling those teeth ripping into him every time he hears a dog howl.”
“Loth saved my life,” Ranulf said, “and so did you. I’d have drowned for certes if you had not come to my aid. I thank Almighty God for you both. May He bless you with His Bounty for the rest of your days.”
Josce smiled oddly, as if at a private joke Ranulf could not be expected to understand. He was the younger of the two brothers, no more than twenty, and none would have taken them for kin. He was taller, leaner, far more intense, as taut as a notched bow and as ready to fire. “I wonder,” he said, “if the memory of your blessing will soon catch in your throat like a fish bone, gagging you whenever you remember making it.”
Ranulf frowned. “Why should it? I owe you both my life. How could I not be grateful?”
Josce shrugged. “You’d best give credit where due, to my softhearted brother. If it had been up to me, I might well have ridden by, keeping my eyes on the road.”
“No, you would not,” his brother contradicted. “Never in this lifetime.”
Josce shrugged again. “Mayhap not,” he conceded. “Kill a weasel and every man’s chickens sleep safer at night. I might even have fished you out of that pond. But after that, I’d have left you to fend for yourself. It was my brother’s foolhardy notion to load you into our cart, to tend your wounds as if you were our own kin. So if thanks are owed, you pay them to him, not me.”
“I see,” Ranulf said, although he did not. Josce seemed to be going out of his way to be belligerent. Why?
Josce’s brother was no longer smiling. “Josce feared that if you died of your wound and were found in our cart, men would blame us for your death,” he explained somberly, but Ranulf still did not understand.
“Why would you be blamed? Because you are…peddlers?”
Josce smiled, without humor. “No…because we are Jews,” he said, and laughed bitterly then, at Ranulf’s involuntary recoil. “From your look of horror, I assume you’ve never been in the company of…what do you Gentiles like to call us? The Devil’s minions? Servants of Satan?”
He was not far wrong, for Ranulf had never had any dealings with Jews. He knew of them, of course. They’d come over to England from Normandy after the Conquest. Most were moneylenders, for they were not permitted to join the craft guilds. They were often accused of usury, of coin-clipping, and sometimes suspected of profaning the Eucharist, stabbing the Host till it bled. Four years ago in Norwich, an even more unspeakable accusation had been made, that they had crucified a Christian child in an unholy mockery of the Passion of Christ. The Norwich sheriff had not believed the charge, taking the town’s Jews into the castle to shelter them from a mob’s fury. But his skepticism had not stopped people from flocking to the church where the boy was buried, or from proclaiming him a
